Streets of Rage 4 (Official Thread)

[Team Andromeda]

I can respect that. Didn't mean to come off the wrong way. Everyone is entitled to an opinion no doubt. It just seems that people like to give Sega a free pass and give independent developers that take initiative unmitigated criticism.
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Fair enough. I don't like the look or think, the game is 'that' amazing. Its nothing do with the developer independent developers, I love REZ VR after all and that wasn't made by SEGA, but by an independent developer. I never had any issues with the remake of Wonderboy: The bright colourful graphics, suited the look of the original perfectly.

I'll give credit to SEGA when it does good, but hit out when they don't. I'm one of the few, that's had enough of the Yakuza games and think, the move to Turned based combat in the new game, is a massive step backwards.

That said, it really had to find big issues with the likes of Judgment, IV Valkyrie IV and the new Sakura Wars games. All play great and look lovely. If only SEGA did more of it. Give their In-House Teams the time and the budget to make worthy updates or with the Yakuza team, try something bloody new LOL

[Silanda]

Been playing this and having a blast. I do have a few small criticisms however:

Why isn't there a remix of the classic Streets of Rage level complete theme? The new one sucks balls. While I wouldn't have been in favour of much more music than that being remixed, it should have been in the game IMO as it's presence in the other three makes it feel almost as much a part of the series as the characters. A similar argument could be made that the original Streets of Rage theme should have appeared at some point, even if just in the credits like in SoR3.

Axel kind of sucks. He's quite strong, but he's not quick enough to avoid enemies and he doesn't seem to have any particular strengths or gimmicks that makes him a good choice.

Enemies with Super Armour. I'm not a fan of this mechanic as it seems like a cheap way of increasing difficulty. Some enemies, such as the Commissioner, make this even worse because they combine it with obnoxious moves that most characters have limited options to avoid. Not such a big deal when fighting one on one, but a pain in the ass when there's several of them in addition to another boss (Estel train fight).

[zyrobs]

Enemies with Super Armour. I'm not a fan of this mechanic as it seems like a cheap way of increasing difficulty. Some enemies, such as the Commissioner, make this even worse because they combine it with obnoxious moves that most characters have limited options to avoid. Not such a big deal when fighting one on one, but a pain in the ass when there's several of them in addition to another boss (Estel train fight).

Oh, you just wait until you have to fight multiple Big Bens in the sewers or on Y Island.

[Virtua Hunter]

If you think this thread is bad, consider there's somebody on Twitter trying to lead a crusade against SOR4 because it's not a '90s nostalgiafest with Neo Geo style graphics and has started to pester the Sega accounts to tell them to stop giving franchises to third parties immediately because it's destroying them or something.

This shit is like the gaming equivalent of the cranky old guy yelling at the kids.

Not that he is wrong and I'm glad that someone finally says the truth, I think too that licensing all the old IPs to amateur indie developers is only hurting the Sega legacy, and nothing good will come from this.
And that's even worse when you have Nagoshi that recognized this (the fact that Sega doesn't treat their IPs with the same regards of Nintendo) as a fault of Sega and one of the reason why they don't have a console anymore...

And here we are, with a french comic brawler who think it's the forth SOR, and an ugly imitation of Panzer Dragoon still in early access...

[zyrobs]

Not that he is wrong and I'm glad that someone finally says the truth, I think too that licensing all the old IPs to amateur indie developers is only hurting the Sega legacy, and nothing good will come from this.
And that's even worse when you have Nagoshi that recognized this (the fact that Sega doesn't treat their IPs with the same regards of Nintendo) as a fault of Sega and one of the reason why they don't have a console anymore...

And here we are, with a french comic brawler who think it's the forth SOR, and an ugly imitation of Panzer Dragoon still in early access...

The Sega we knew from the 80s/90s/early 00s is long gone, indie devs picking up the slack it the most we can hope from their IPs.

Having a bunch of French cartoonists making a new SOR game is far better than this IP could have hoped for. If they can just patch the gameplay to be more SOR-like, then this game will be perfectly fine (I mean, other than the SOR1/2/3 characters being completely and utterly screwed, they need to rework those from the ground up to be more than MUGEN tier hacks).

Allow specials to break stun, allow for dashes, tune down the pointlessly invincible enemies, add player invincibility on wakeup... All this would make the game faster paced, more fun, less frustrating. They could even make Mania mode much harder with those changes, because the game would suddenly play fair.

[Gryson]

Eh, I think some of you might have rose-colored glasses on.

Current Sega is a solid developer of AAA Japan-centric titles. It might not be your thing, but they've carved out a niche in the modern industry.

I consider the Yakuza series to be some of the best story-driven games ever made. And Persona 5 is an incredible RPG.

I am glad that Sega is licensing out titles like SOR4 rather than putting their full resources behind nostalgia-driven sales.

And really, aside from Sonic, Sega never relied on old IPs in the past like Nintendo did. Every Sega console was marked by new IPs.

It's a bit sad when you have a company trying to bring new content and you get people complaining "Why can't you be more like Nintendo and just focus on legacy titles?!"

[Virtua Hunter]

The Sega we knew from the 80s/90s/early 00s is long gone, indie devs picking up the slack it the most we can hope from their IPs.

Having a bunch of French cartoonists making a new SOR game is far better than this IP could have hoped for. If they can just patch the gameplay to be more SOR-like, then this game will be perfectly fine (I mean, other than the SOR1/2/3 characters being completely and utterly screwed, they need to rework those from the ground up to be more than MUGEN tier hacks).

Allow specials to break stun, allow for dashes, tune down the pointlessly invincible enemies, add player invincibility on wakeup... All this would make the game faster paced, more fun, less frustrating. They could even make Mania mode much harder with those changes, because the game would suddenly play fair.

In the end SOR4 is a nice game, if you treat it like a fangame instead of the "forth game" of the series, you can even enjoy it.
Like Sonic Mania, it is a work of the fans, it's not the real thing (even Mania has lots of issues with physics and level design compared to the original).

This time we were lucky since the game is nice on its own, instead with Panzer Dragoon Remake we got a very bad PD game, and even a bad rail shooter on its own.

I think it's not mandatory to resurrect old series, especially when there aren't the right conditions to do it (ex. no original team, no talents, no budget...).

It starts to get annoying to have these so called "a dream come true", that are just a nightmare to see our favourite series destroyed by amateurs.

Sega is different now yes, in fact Sega changed with every generation, 8 bit Sega was different from 16 bit Sega, so the 32 bit Sega and 128 bit Sega etc. until the current Sega.
I think we should cheer and support Sega to do better, to do more games like Valkyria 4 or Sakura Wars, that should be the new starting point to expand from that.
Who knows in future we could have also a AAA Panzer Dragoon RPG, a new Skies of Arcadia 2, a Shining Force 4, a new real Sega Rally etc.

But if we outsource these games to amateurs now (example Pander Dragoon Saga 2 to that Polish developers) there will be no future for these games inside Sega.
So always pay attention to what you ask nowadays.

[Virtua Hunter]

Eh, I think some of you might have rose-colored glasses on.

Current Sega is a solid developer of AAA Japan-centric titles. It might not be your thing, but they've carved out a niche in the modern industry.

I consider the Yakuza series to be some of the best story-driven games ever made. And Persona 5 is an incredible RPG.

I am glad that Sega is licensing out titles like SOR4 rather than putting their full resources behind nostalgia-driven sales.

And really, aside from Sonic, Sega never relied on old IPs in the past like Nintendo did. Every Sega console was marked by new IPs.

It's a bit sad when you have a company trying to bring new content and you get people complaining "Why can't you be more like Nintendo and just focus on legacy titles?!"

I agree with the first part.

For the second part, I think it's just sad to see Sega giving "a big who cares" to their old series, to the point they don't really care who get their licenses and how they use it.

Also nowdays Sega aren't doing anything new, they are only making Yakuza after Yakuza since 15 years (even Judgment is just Yakuza with a different name, so much for the new things), leaving the crumbs to other series like Valkyria, Virtual on etc (even Sonic now) that must be developed all on very tight budget.

while some unlucky IPs are treated like trash and given to the first beggars who try to enter in this business (like the PD Remake developers).
A real shame.

[Silanda]

Allow specials to break stun, allow for dashes, tune down the pointlessly invincible enemies, add player invincibility on wakeup... All this would make the game faster paced, more fun, less frustrating. They could even make Mania mode much harder with those changes, because the game would suddenly play fair.

Allowing specials to break super armour would really be a boon IMO. I'm actually on my third playthrough, increasing difficulty each time (currently on hardest), and I'm finding that as the difficulty increases I'm using specials less and less as the risk:reward ratio just isn't in their favour most of their time. Being able to break super armour with them might tip that back a little.

[Gryson]

For the second part, I think it's just sad to see Sega giving "a big who cares" to their old series, to the point they don't really care who get their licenses and how they use it.

You saying that doesn't make it true, though. They've only just started licensing out dormant properties, and only to a small number of developers.

But the funniest thing is, even Streets of Rage 2 was not developed in-house but was outsourced to Ancient, who at the time were a brand new company that had never made a game and didn't even have a programmer on staff.

Sega outsourced development all of the time back in the day, especially in the 16-bit era.

Also nowdays Sega aren't doing anything new, they are only making Yakuza after Yakuza since 15 years (even Judgment is just Yakuza with a different name, so much for the new things), leaving the crumbs to other series like Valkyria, Virtual on etc (even Sonic now) that must be developed all on very tight budget.

Yes, only Yakuza...

and Sakura Wars. And Valkyria Chronicles 4. And Sonic racing series. And PSO2 in English. And all of Atlus's amazing games.

Having a massively successful series like Yakuza is not a negative point. It keeps the company healthy enough to put out other titles.

[Team Andromeda]

I agree with the first part.

For the second part, I think it's just sad to see Sega giving "a big who cares" to their old series, to the point they don't really care who get their licenses and how they use it.

Also nowdays Sega aren't doing anything new, they are only making Yakuza after Yakuza since 15 years (even Judgment is just Yakuza with a different name, so much for the new things), leaving the crumbs to other series like Valkyria, Virtual on etc (even Sonic now) that must be developed all on very tight budget.

while some unlucky IPs are treated like trash and given to the first beggars who try to enter in this business (like the PD Remake developers).
A real shame.

I agree for the most part . I'm getting sick of all the Yakuza games, but Judgment is such awesome fun. I'm genuinely amazed at how good the Sakura Wars game turned out (after having my doubts). And while I'm not a huge fan of the gameplay, Valkria IV is a job quality production.

I think there's been a marked improvement with Sammy and SEGA the last couple of years . Hopefully we see more of it, now that Sammy seemed to have learned Consoles aren't dead and mobile gaming isn't the Answer.

Maybe SEGA might ready for this next gen this time

[zyrobs]

Allowing specials to break super armour would really be a boon IMO. I'm actually on my third playthrough, increasing difficulty each time (currently on hardest), and I'm finding that as the difficulty increases I'm using specials less and less as the risk:reward ratio just isn't in their favour most of their time. Being able to break super armour with them might tip that back a little.

Specials drain more and more health on harder difficulties too. When I played Easy for an achievement, I was pretty much just spamming specials for the last few levels. On Hardest, you'll end up losing half your lifebar if you mistime a special.

It's actually a decent way to do huge damage to bosses by the way, while they dance around with super armour you can stand in the middle and do your own specials, since they keep you invincible. It's just that, you'll lose way too much life while doing so.

[Virtua Hunter]

You saying that doesn't make it true, though. They've only just started licensing out dormant properties, and only to a small number of developers.

While that is true for the "licensing", the "outsourcing" of dormant IPs to unqualified developers is nothing new.

But the funniest thing is, even Streets of Rage 2 was not developed in-house but was outsourced to Ancient, who at the time were a brand new company that had never made a game and didn't even have a programmer on staff.

Sega outsourced development all of the time back in the day, especially in the 16-bit era.

SOR2 outrourced to Ancient was not a random choice like Panzer Dragoon to Polish devs, Yuzo Koshiro and Sega had ties way before Sonic 1 MS/GG was made, Koshiro was always a Sega man even if he techically worked from outside. Also before SOR2, he had proven to be up to the task with his previous works.

While Sega gave four remakes out of the blue, two Panzer Dragoon and two House of the Dead, to an unknown Polish developers who made its debut with PD Remake and already proven to not be the right choice.

Do you think Sega will now retire the licenses for PD Zwei Remake and HOTD 1 & 2 remake after the poor job done with PD Remake? Of course not since they don't care about their dormant IPs.

Yes, only Yakuza...

and Sakura Wars. And Valkyria Chronicles 4. And Sonic racing series. And PSO2 in English. And all of Atlus's amazing games.

Having a massively successful series like Yakuza is not a negative point. It keeps the company healthy enough to put out other titles.

That's not the point.
You were saying

It's a bit sad when you have a company trying to bring new content and you get people complaining "Why can't you be more like Nintendo and just focus on legacy titles?!"

The problem is Sega is acting just like Nintendo, by reusing always the same 3-4 series for decades (in this case Yakuza, Sonic, Total War and Persona).
While people would like to see Sega act like SEGA, where we can have really brand new things and some sequels (like Sakura and Valkyria).

If we wanted only the same series repeated to death, we would be Nintendo fans...

[Virtua Hunter]

I agree for the most part . I'm getting sick of all the Yakuza games, but Judgment is such awesome fun. I'm genuinely amazed at how good the Sakura Wars game turned out (after having my doubts). And while I'm not a huge fan of the gameplay, Valkria IV is a job quality production.

I think there's been a marked improvement with Sammy and SEGA the last couple of years . Hopefully we see more of it, now that Sammy seemed to have learned Consoles aren't dead and mobile gaming isn't the Answer.

Maybe SEGA might ready for this next gen this time

I like Judgment and it's really fun, but it's just a reskin of Yakuza, is not something like a brand new IP like Sega said.
Valkyria 4 is a work of perfection, it's the best game in the series and it improve the original Valkyria in every way.
Sakura is finally a high production value rpg, something that Sega should made more often.

Things really improved this generation, but there is still a lot of work to do especially for the "brand new IPs" part (we can't just continue to reskin Yakuza and pretend it's a different game) and for the "dormant IP" part (we can't just license everything to indie devs and pretend it's fine).

[Gryson]

While that is true for the "licensing", the "outsourcing" of dormant IPs to unqualified developers is nothing new.

SOR2 outrourced to Ancient was not a random choice like Panzer Dragoon to Polish devs, Yuzo Koshiro and Sega had ties way before Sonic 1 MS/GG was made, Koshiro was always a Sega man even if he techically worked from outside. Also before SOR2, he had proven to be up to the task with his previous works.

While Sega gave four remakes out of the blue, two Panzer Dragoon and two House of the Dead, to an unknown Polish developers who made its debut with PD Remake and already proven to not be the right choice.

Do you think Sega will retire the licenses for PD Zwei Remake and HOTD 1 & 2 remake after the poor job done with PD Remake? Of course not since they don't care about their dormant IPs.

The thread is about SOR4. Sega did not give the license to an unknown developer, but instead to DotEmu/Lizardcube, who they had successfully worked with on Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. If anything, that should count for more than Yuzo Koshiro's fame as a composer.

Whether you like it or not, SOR4 is doing massively well and getting great reviews.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/9...p_reviews_hash

I think that Sega's strategy here of working with independent developers on old/dormant properties is paying off. It worked well with Sonic Mania, it's working well here. The success rate might not be 100%, but this is the best outcome with Sega continuing to work on modern AAA games in-house.